Hey, wait a minute. This isn’t a collect call. At least, no operator had asked if I’d accept the charges.

“Um, Dad,” I say. “Where are you calling from? Are you still at Camp Eglin?”

What am I talking about? Of course he’s still at Camp Eglin. If he were being released, I’d have heard about it, right?

Only… from whom? Mom doesn’t talk to him anymore, and, now that she lives in Buenos Aires with my money, she doesn’t talk to me all that much anymore, either… .

“Well, that’s the thing, honey,” Dad says. “You see, I’ve been released.”

“Really?” I check to see how I feel about that. I am surprised to find that I feel… nothing. I mean, I love my dad, and all. But the truth is, I haven’t seen him in so long—Mom would never take me to visit him, of course, since she hated his guts for losing all his money and forcing her to have to work (as my agent and promoter).

And once I got old enough to go by myself, I was too broke ever to make it to Florida. Dad and I were never that close, anyway… more like polite acquaintances, really, than parent and child. Thanks to Mom.

“Wow,” I say, looking in the cardboard box to see how much dark meat is left. I am determined to save the breasts for Cooper, since they’re his favorite. “That’s great, Dad. So, where are you now?”

“Funny you should ask. I’m actually calling you from down the street—the Washington Square Diner. I was wondering if you wanted to get together for coffee.”

Seriously. I just don’t get it. I go for months—literally—where nothing at all unusual happens to me. My days are a blur of dog-walking, work, and Golden Girl reruns. And then WHAM! In one day, I find a head in a pot on a stove; get asked to play my songs at Joe’s Pub with none other than super-mega-rock-star Frank Robillard; and my dad gets out of jail, shows up in my local coffee shop, and asks to see me.

Why can’t things happen a little at a time? Like one day I find the head; another day Frank asks me to jam with him on stage; and another day my dad calls to let me know he’s out of jail and in my hometown.

But I guess we don’t get to choose how things transpire.

Because if we did, I definitely wouldn’t have eaten all that chicken before going to see my dad. Because the sight of him sitting there in that booth—before he notices me, so I have a chance to study him before he knows he’s being observed—causes my gut to twist. Not in the same way it twisted when I saw Lindsay’s head in that pot—that was horror. The sight of my dad just saddens me.

Maybe because he looks sad. Sad and thin. He’s not the robust golf player I knew from two decades ago—the last time I saw him outside of Camp Eglin’s visitors’ center—but a sort of shell of that man, reed-thin, with graying hair and the even whiter beginnings of a beard and mustache.

Still, that face transforms when he glances my way and finally notices me in the doorway. Not that he is overcome with joy or anything. He just plasters a grin on his face—a grin that doesn’t reach his sad, tired eyes—every bit as blue as my own.

And every bit as cautiously guarded.

What do you say to the father you haven’t seen for so long, with whom your relationship has always been… well, nonexistent, even when you lived together?

I say, “Hey, Dad,” and slide into the booth across the table from him. Because what else am I supposed to say?

“Heather,” he says, and reaches across the table to squeeze my hand, once I’ve stripped off my gloves. His fingers feel warm against mine. I squeeze back, with a smile.

“So this is a surprise,” I say. “When did you get out?”

“Last week,” he says. “I thought about calling you then, but… well, I wasn’t sure you’d be too happy to see me.”

“Of course I’m happy to see you, Dad.” Dad’s not the one I have a beef with. Well, not really. I mean, it wasn’t exactly cool of him not to pay taxes all those years. But it wasn’t MY money he wasn’t paying taxes on. Or, in the case of Mom, stole. “When did you get here? To the city, I mean?”

“This morning. I took the bus. Lovely way to see the country.” The waitress comes up as he’s saying this, and he looks at me questioningly. “Have you had dinner?”

“Oh, yes,” I say. “I’m good. Just hot chocolate would be nice”—I say this last to the waitress—“with whipped cream.”

Dad orders chicken noodle soup to go with his coffee. The waitress nods and goes away. She looks distracted. She’s probably worrying about the impending snowstorm, which a weatherman on New York One, playing on the TV hanging over the counter, assures us is due at any moment.

“So,” I say. “The bus.” For some reason I can’t stop thinking about Morgan Freeman’s ride to freedom on that bus in the movie The Shawshank Redemption. Well, I guess it isn’t too surprising. Morgan Freeman had been a prisoner, too. “Isn’t that like a parole violation? I mean, for you to leave the state of Florida?”

“Don’t worry about me, kiddo,” Dad had said, patting my hand. “I’ve got things under control. For a change.”

“Great,” I say. “That’s great, Dad.”

“So what do you hear from your mother?” he wants to know. I notice that he doesn’t make eye contact when he asks this. He busies himself adding more half and half to his coffee.

“Well,” I say, “you mean since she took off for Buenos Aires with the contents of my bank account? Not a whole heck of a lot.”

Dad purses his lips and shakes his head. Now he makes eye contact. “I’m sorry about that, Heather,” he says. “You can’t know how much. Your mother isn’t like that. I don’t know what could have come over her.”

“Really? Because I have a pretty good idea,” I say, as the waitress comes back with his soup and my hot chocolate.

“Oh?” Dad digs into his soup like it’s his first food of the day. For such a skinny guy, he has a pretty good appetite. “What’s that?”

“Her meal ticket lost her recording contract,” I say.

“Oh, now, Heather,” Dad says, looking up from his soup. “Don’t say that. Your mother loves you very much. She’s just never been a strong woman. I’m sure it wasn’t her idea—taking your money, I mean. I’m positive that Ricardo character put her up to it.”

And I’m positive it was the other way around, actually, but I don’t say so, because I don’t feel like getting into an argument about it.

“How about you?” I ask instead. “Have you heard from her?”

“Not in quite some time,” Dad says. He opens one of the packs of crackers that came with his soup. “Of course, given the way I let her down, I don’t suppose I deserve to.”

“I wouldn’t beat yourself up over that one, Dad,” I say, feeling that twinge in my stomach again. Only this time, I realize the twinge is actually north of my stomach. It’s more in the vicinity of my heart. And it appears to be pity. “She hasn’t exactly been Miss Parent of the Year herself.”

Dad shakes his head over his soup. “Poor Heather,” he says, with a sigh. “When they were handing out parents up in heaven, you certainly got the short end of the stick.”

“I don’t know,” I say, surprised to find myself prickling a little. “I think I’ve done all right for myself. I mean, I’ve got a job, and a nice place to live, and… well, I’m getting my BA.”

Dad looks surprised… but pleasantly so. “Good for you!” he says. “At New York College?”

I nod. “I get tuition remission through my job,” I explain. “I have to take this remedial math course before I can start taking real courses, but—”

“And what are you going to study?” Dad wants to know. His enthusiasm about the subject takes me aback, a little. “Music? I hope you’re studying music. You’ve always been so very talented.”

“Uh,” I say. “Actually, I was thinking more of criminal justice.”

Dad looks startled. “Good heavens,” he says. “Why? Do you want to be a policewoman?”

“I don’t know,” I say. I’m too embarrassed to tell him the truth… that I’d hoped, with a BA in criminal justice, Cooper might take me on as a partner in his business, and the two of us could detect crimes together. Like Remington Steele. Or Hart to Hart.